This Sunday will see the 115th annual varsity hockey match between Oxford and Cambridge being played at Southgate Hockey Centre in London.

The match has a long history, first taking place in Oxford in 1890. The following year, the match was played in London on neutral ground and has been ever since, changing venues a further ten times before the current venue was established at Southgate, which has been the location since 2003.

In total, Oxford has won the match 45 times, Cambridge has won the match 51 times, and it has been drawn 18 times. Previously, if the match was drawn, the previous holders of the trophy would retain it, but 2014 saw the introduction of a shoot-out in order to decide the winner. In the shoot-out, five members of each team are given eight seconds to score in free play against the opposing goalkeeper, which would make for an exciting (and extremely tense) finish to the match.

In recent times, Cambridge have come out on top, winning the trophy three years in succession from 2012. Last year’s match was extremely tight, finishing in a 2-1 victory for Cambridge. For many of the Oxford squad in this year’s varsity, it is likely to be the last varsity they compete in, and will be even hungrier for the win because of it.

This year, the Blues faced some difficult times early on in the season as the team settled in and team members took time to get to know each other. However, the group has subsequently begun to find form, finishing third in their British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) league, and reaching the quarter finals of the national BUCS cup. The team eventually only went out to a strong Durham side.

According to spectators, the squad has also displayed some very promising performances in the Saturday league recently. Team members will be extremely positive going into Sunday’s encounter.

Transport from Oxford is available for supporters to watch the match, but space is extremely limited, so interested parties are encouraged to approach members of the team to book spaces as soon as possible.

The Boat Race is the biggest event in Oxford’s sporting calendar. With 161 years of history (yes this is the 161st Boat Race) it is full of antiquity and prestige, and sees the best rowers at Oxbridge battle it out side by side for victory and glory.

So much work and training goes into the teams’ preparations, with 12 training sessions a week this year, and no doubt years of training before the teams are even able to trial.

The stakes are so high, with not only crowds of Oxbridge students lining the banks of the Thames screaming for their university, but also the millions watching on BBC One, on which it is broadcast each year. Let’s hope we can all watch Oxford race to glory this year and take victory in both men’s and women’s once more.

OUBC will be looking for their 79th victory over Cambridge, which will put them within just two victories of equalling Cambridge’s overall win tally. But what are the chances of this happening? And how likely actually is victory for Oxford?

One of the squad members, Rufus Stirling, told Cherwell, “The squad is looking strong this year. We don’t have many comparisons with Cambridge’s speed so far, but our focus is not on them – it’s on making sure we go as fast as we are capable of.” Let’s hope the Blues and Isis manage to take their third victory this April!”

Moving on to the women’s race, the President of OUWBC, Anastasia Chitty, let us know how the women are getting on.

Their race is of particularly special importance this year, as, for the first time in the history of their race, OUWBC will race against Cambridge on the same Championship course as the men, and it will also becovered on the BBC.

Anastasia is extremely excited about this change and the opportunity to finally race on the Championship course.

“To have the opportunity to be one of the first women to compete in the Boat Race, on the same stage as the men, is an absolutely phenomenal privilege.

“To be in a position where what we are doing will inspire girls and women to take up sport, and rowing in particular, is amazing! I want to row in the Boat Race primarily because I love rowing, but also because this race is unique and exciting.”

With this in mind, and the likelihood that far more of us will actually see this race along with the men’s, their preparations are potentially more important than ever before.

“The Oxford women are doing really well at the moment, encouraged by some very strong performances recently in match racing, the team are excited to keep moving forward over the next six weeks.

“Having had three seasons to get prepared for our move to the Tideway, we are confident that we are preparing well for this new chal- lenge.”

Like OUBC, they have not yet finished their trialling and selection process, and the final announcement of the crews will be made just after the end of term, on March 19th. Anasta- sia then went on to talk about training and the squad.

“Training will continue in much the same way as characterised the earlier parts of the season but with more time in our respec- tive crews and more opportunities to line up against some fast crews in match racing scenarios. The team is characterised by an extremely strong internal focus, and so the magnitude and pressure of the occasion seem often distant to us.”

It seems that everything is going accord- ing to plan and all the girls are staying calm and focused. This is obviously a great sign for Oxford, but what does the President think of our chances this year in the big race?

“This year, the OUWBC has an extremely strong team, and throughout the season we’ve had great racing performances which have given us confidence going forward. However, we know the Cambridge Women will be fast and equally driven to own this significant moment in history.”

The first Women’s Boat Race to be held over the four and a quarter mile Championship Course will take place on April 11th at 4.50pm, so make sure you don’t miss this historic occasion. If you are unable to make it to London and the banks of the Thames, coverage will start on the BBC at 4.15pm for all to watch.

The 161st Men’s Boat Race will follow the Women’s at 5.50pm and will also be covered on the BBC, so make sure you watch Oxford try and achieve a hat trick of wins over Cambridge in the Oxford sporting event of the year

New York based illustrator Daniel Nyari is an industrious man. His art has appeared in a plethora of respected publications – The New York Times, The Guardian, FourFourTwo and more – and he is the Creative Director of Futbol Artist Network, a leading football-only art boutique. Bearing in mind my intimidating international phone tariff, I am keen to ensure our transatlantic interview stays on track.

Born in Romania, Nyari grew up in continental Europe, before moving to America in the late 90s. He inherited a passion for football from his father, who played semi-professionally and from a young age, he approached the beautiful game from an artistic angle.

“When I wasn’t playing or watching, I was drawing players,” he tells me, his subtly lilting accent crackling down the line. “I copied posters, Panini stickers, and these old school cigarette cards we had. I’ve always drawn footballers and when I became an illustrator, I wanted to make some of that work public.”

The influence these early drawings had on Nyari’s later work is immediately obvious in perhaps his most well-known illustrations: his portraits.

These framed head-and-shoulders are undeniably evocative of Panini stickers, but they are executed in Nyari’s own charmingly idiosyncratic style – a combination of block colours and precise shapes which captures the essence of the individual perfectly.

“I have an interest in reducing things to their bare elements,” he informs me, “which came from my time designing logos and websites. I always wanted to combine that with my traditional illustrations, so the football portraits are essentially exercises in thinking about faces in very reductive terms.”

“They look simple, but it can take up to 15 hours for one portrait alone. The most difficult ones to get right are the objectively good-look- ing footballers, like Olivier Giroud, who have very symmetrical faces with standard features that, culturally, we consider appealing.”

“With someone like Pirlo, on the other hand, it’s very easy to isolate their key characteristics. He has the big nose, the beard, the long hair. Then it’s all about the juxtaposition of his facial features; how I can scale down the size of his chin to emphasise the length of his nose, for example.”

“I have this idea that you can have 30 face templates, with very distinctive features, from which any face in the world can be made, just by combining different elements. A cheek from here, an eye from there.”

It seems churlish to refute Nyari’s claims, given his evident knack of achieving uncanny likenesses with the simplest, most elegant of patterns.

Clearly, this is a man who can see potency in the marriage of football and art.

“Soccer lends itself to being depicted in an iconic way,” he asserts. “A good artistic representation of football can be more engaging than a photograph.

“Everything that is inherently iconic about a moment, or a player, or a team, can be turned into a symbolic representation. It can be carved in stone.”

“I’m a football purist,” he tells me. “Because I’ve lived in so many places, I can’t pledge my allegiance to one team. I view football like I do art and movies. I can fall in love with different teams at different times. I was obsessed, like ev- eryone, with Guardiola’s Barcelona. Right now, I’m invested in Borussia Dortmund because of their narrative.”

As our interview nears the half-hour mark, with my next phone bill soaring, it finally descends, somewhat predictably, into fervent chit-chat about the Premier League.

“The thing about Mesut Özil,” Nyari remarks, “is that it’s very easy to transpose blame onto him. His body language stands out, so when Arsenal play badly, he gets a lot of unwarranted criticism.”

“You’re totally right,” I agree, “and I think he has been playing really well since he returned from injury.”

My out-of-plan charges continue to rise

The second Polo Club Cuppers of the academic year took place on Saturday 28th February 2015, to light drizzle and the backdrop of the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside at Holbrook Farm in East End, Witney. Teams from five colleges – New, St Catherine’s, Wycliffe, University, MBAs (representing the Saïd Business School) – competed for the chance to challenge for St Peter’s title as the Cuppers reigning champions, who had also returned to defend it. The teams were comprised of players with ranging abilities, from those new to the game at the beginning of Hilary, to seasoned players returning from participation in the SUPA nationals last weekend.